Webster

Friday, August 31, 2012

I will tie this in with a post I did a couple of days ago with the "Radical Muslim T-shirt" I had used this picture shortly after I had started blogging. It is in one of my folders that I keep all the pics that I use when I post.

The difference between us and them, We as Western based culture will try to save the women and children, it is on our culture. the other cultures view women and children as 2nd class citizens and how they fight reflects this.

After the news of a U.S. soldier charged with murdering Afghan
civilians, mostly women and children, the story of Spc. Dennis Weichel
of the Rhode Island National Guard bears telling.
The official Pentagon news release says he died "from injuries
suffered in a noncombat related incident." But there is much more to the
story. Weichel, 29, of Providence, died saving the life of a little
girl.
According to the Rhode Island National Guard and the U.S. Army, Weichel
was in a convoy a week ago with his unit in Laghman Province, in
northeast Afghanistan. Some children were in the road in front of the
convoy, and Weichel and other troops got out to move them out of the
way.
Most of the children moved, but one little girl went back to pick up
some brass shell casings in the road. Afghan civilians often recycle the
casings, and the girl appeared to aim to do that. But a Mine-Resistant
Ambush-Protected vehicle was moving toward her, according to Lt. Col.
Denis Riel of the Rhode Island National Guard.
MRAPs, as they are known, usually weigh more than 16 tons.
Weichel saw the massive truck bearing down on the girl and grabbed
her out of the way. But in the process, the armored truck ran him over,
Riel said.
The little girl is fine. Weichel died a short time later of his injuries.
"He was a big kid at heart. He always had a smile on his face, and he
made everyone laugh," 1st Sgt. Nicky Peppe, who served with Weichel in
Iraq, is quoted as saying in an Army story.
"But as much as Weichel was funny, he was also a professional. When
it was time to go outside the wire for a combat patrol, he was all
business."
Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has ordered flags in the state
lowered to half-staff until Weichel, who was posthumously promoted to
sergeant, is laid to rest Monday.
Weichel is survived by his parents, his fiancee and three children.
His family will be awarded a Bronze Star and other awards for his
sacrifice.

I saw this while surfing the blogosphere, I am not a grammer-Nazi but I do try to use English in the proper way. I remember something my Dad told me many years ago, "The written word is how you will represent yourself, that will be other people will perceive you..." I make a point when I do a posting that the spell check doesn't find anything. It is a matter of pride especially when I see how atrocious the younger generation spell and it is ok....to them.
I also remember something else that it is a matter of courtesy that when one party is having a convention, the other party abstains from campaigning...especially in the same area. But we have the classy democrats breaking the courtesy....like when they had Vice President Biden show up in Tampa on Monday to give a speech.

The Democrats hired a plane
to fly anti-Romney banners around the Republican National Convention
this weekend, but they may be inspiring more mirth than thoughtful
opposition to Republicans.
Here’s a picture of the banner being flown around today, which
mistakenly uses the singular “woman” instead of the plural “women.”

Last week, while Romney was appearing in Ohio, Democrats flew another
banner around which also had an error using “then” (which relates to
time) as opposed to “than” (which is a word used in comparisons).

I work without an editor, and make my fair share of typos and
spelling/grammar mistakes, but then I’m not hooking my blog posts up to
the back of an airplane and flying them around.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

This is humorous in a warped way, But on a serious note when you have a culture that believes in self-destruction of the young for political gain, it goes against the my western based thought. Granted in other parts of the world, they believe differently...but I have said it more than once...On most places life is really cheap.

"YOU WATCHED THEM GROW UP...
NOW WATCH EM BLOW UP."

***Available in the Gaza Strip and other fine Middle Eastern locations.

***Also
available is the new book, "Learning how to crash and burn while
screaming Allah Akbar," by I-Zheet M'Drawz. Coming soon, "Killing
innocent people in the name of Islam and How to Justify it," by Ally Ben
Fartine, and "I was a Teenage Homocide Bomber," by Apoul Madeek A-Lot.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

I decided to take a break from going through the stuff in the attic, and decided to catch the convention in Tampa, I turned the TV on just in time to catch Condi Rice's speech, I always like Condi Rice, she always exuded calm professionalism. For a person who stays out of the limelight, she gave a good speech about the promise of America and the unlimited opportunities of America.
She was followed by the New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez who talked about starting as a prosecutor and later switching party after realizing that they were Republicans not Democrats. She also gave a good speech.
Paul Ryan gave a stem winder speech. He was humble, gave a good oratory speech, dogged the President for lack of leadership and after 4 years...still trying to blame the past administration. And the kicker line was to the 20 something that after graduating from college, had to move back to their childhood home because they can't find a job and look at the fading poster of Candidate Obama in their room and wonder what had happened. I though that was the most telling.

I believe that this is political pandering to his base. I used to build cars and the automakers shave ounces everywhere they can to lighten the cars. Computers have helped with engine management and fuel economy. The free market tells the automakers that they need to build more fuel efficient vehicles and the automakers respond because they want to stay in business...unless they are government motors. Now they have this artificial standard that they have to meet. It will force them to cut weight along with the composites that are being used. People wonder why cars cost more and more. The cars will also become more dangerous because in a collision the lesser weight becomes a liability.

New Rule Raises Costs

White House’s fuel rules will raise car costs by $2,000

AP Images

BY: CJ CiaramellaAugust 28, 2012 1:40 pm
The
White House finalized its new fuel efficiency standards Tuesday. The
new standards are designed to double the miles-per-gallon of consumer
vehicles by 2025, and will raise the average cost of a car by $2,000.
The Obama administration’s finalized Corporate Average Fuel Economy
(CAFE) fuel standards rule will require cars and light trucks to achieve
fuel efficiency of 54.5 mpg by model year 2025. The standards will also
cost up to an estimated $157 billion and add $2,000 to the price of
passenger automobiles, according to two federal agencies.
“These fuel standards represent the single most important step we’ve
ever taken to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” President Obama
said in a statement Tuesday. This reduction comes with a cost, however.
Republicans have panned the rule changes. Rep. Darrell Issa (R.,
Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, has questioned
whether the rules were rushed and could jeopardize safety by reducing
the weight of cars.
“The rule finalized today by the Obama Administration will hurt
American consumers by forcing them to drive more expensive and less safe
automobiles,” Issa said in a statement. “The Administration drafted
these standards in secret, strong-arming automakers and short-circuiting
the deliberative regulatory process to achieve a purely political
result, abandoning sound science and objectivity to appease its
political allies in the extreme environmentalist lobby. I support the
goal of higher fuel efficiency, but this rule will only add to the
burdens American small businesses and middle class families face under
the heavy hand of the Obama Administration.”
In an analysis of the rule posted on their websites last summer, the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) predicted
the administration’s new CAFE standards would add an average of $2,000
to the price of each new passenger vehicle sold by 2025. The NHTSA
attributed the increased costs to the price of developing new
fuel-saving technology.
However, the highway agency predicted the costs of the new standards
will be offset by benefits of $419 billion to $515 billion. The Obama
administration also claims the rules will save consumers $8,000 in
reduced gas costs over the lifetime of a vehicle by 2025, ultimately
reduce oil consumption by 2 million barrels a day, and reduce carbon
emissions by six billion metric tons over the course of the program.
The rules were first drafted in July 2011 with the cooperation of 13 major auto manufacturers, and will go into effect in 2017

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

When Dodd-Frank was crafted by 2 of the people widely believed responsible for the housing sub prime market crash, they targeted executives, but the banks are having to apply the penalties across the board due to possibilities of lawsuits for discrimination. Another unintended consequence of Government regulations.

I saw this on Yahoo News.

Richard Eggers (ABC5 News)DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (WFC)
has fired a Des Moines worker over a 1963 incident at a Laundromat
involving a fake dime in the wake of new employment guidelines.

Richard
Eggers, 68, was fired in July from his job as a customer service
representative for putting a cardboard cutout of a dime in a washing
machine nearly 50 years ago in Carlisle, the Des Moines Register reported Monday.

Warren
County court records show Eggers was convicted of operating a
coin-changing machine by false means. Eggers called it a "stupid stunt,"
but questions his firing.

Big banks have been firing low-level
employees like Eggers since new federal banking employment guidelines
were enacted in May 2011 and new mortgage employment guidelines took
hold in February, the newspaper said. The tougher standards are meant to
clear out executives and mid-level bank employees guilty of
transactional crimes — such as identity theft and money laundering — but
are being applied across the board because of possible fines for
noncompliance.

Banks have fired thousands of workers nationally,
said Natasha Buchanan, an attorney in Santa Ana, Calif., who has helped
some of the workers regain their eligibility to be employed.

"Banks are afraid of the FDIC and the penalties they could face," Buchanan said.

The
regulatory rules forbid the employment of anyone convicted of a crime
involving dishonesty, breach of trust or money laundering. Before the
guidelines were changed, banks widely interpreted the rules to exclude
minor traffic offenses and misdemeanors.

Wells Fargo confirmed Eggers' termination.

"The
expectations that have been placed on us and all financial institutions
have never been higher," said Wells Fargo spokeswoman Angela Kaipust.

The
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. provides a waiver process employees can
follow to show they're still fit to work at a bank despite a past
criminal conviction, but it usually takes six months to a year to be
approved. There is also a process for automatic waiver that works more
quickly but is limited to people who were sentenced to less than year of
jail time and never spent a day locked up.

Eggers, who was jailed two days, doesn't qualify.

American
Bankers Association spokeswoman Carol Kaplan said the public clamor for
tighter regulation also is responsible for the stricter interpretation
of the rules. The safest route is to fire the employee and let them
pursue an FDIC waiver.

"There's no question that there was an
appetite for tighter bank regulation as a result of the global financial
crisis," Kaplan said.

There is no government or industry data on
the number of bank firings due to criminal background checks. The FDIC
is on pace to grant 74 waivers, up from 21 waivers approved in 2009. The
agency was not able to provide any information on annual waiver
application data.

The changes are shown in a startling composite picture of the skyline
over the decades, starting with 1876, going into 1932 and 1988 and
finishing in 2013. All that remains from the hustle and bustle of the
19th century is the iconic Brookly Bridge which was just being built to
connect the district with Manhattan.

I saw this on one of the foreign newspapers that I read online. I was kinda surprised to see this featured since the average European still likes President Obama. There have been comments across the blogosphere that this is the nastiest campaign in modern history and seeing how the democrats are playing Chicago politics and we have the various talking heads trying to link the RNC in Tampa with the impending tropical storm that is supposed to hit the gulf coast, I have heard things about "Republicans are partying while people are suffering in New Orleans" trying to tie the RNC to the Bush/Katrina back in 2005. I have also heard that while in the past when one party has their convention, the other party would abstain from campaigning out of respect. This year we have no slowdown of the DNC efforts...we even have Joe Biden in Tampa at the same time....that is kinda tacky.

Barack Obama was swept to the White
House in 2008 by a wave of idealism and inspirational campaigning in
which he encapsulated the mood of the nation with his slogans of ‘Hope’,
‘Change’ and ‘Yes we can’.Then,
his message was a fundamentally positive one. Americans wanted an end
to the Bush era but that almost went without saying. Obama pointed to
his own vision of the country; a post-partisan, post-racial America in
which gridlock in Washington was ended and common-sense centrist
solutions were adopted.What
a difference four years makes. Obama is campaigning ferociously for a
second term – and he is a candidate who would have probably have been
disdained by the Obama of 2008.

Four more years? President Obama, pictured left
in March 2008, and right, at an event in Las Vegas earlier this week;
the Commander-in-Chief is waging a relentlessly negative campaign for
the White House

Drawing crowds: While many came to hear Obama
speak Wednesday at Canyon Springs High School in Las Vegas, it's nowhere
near the numbers he was reaching in 2008

Obama is waging a relentlessly
negative campaign of changing the subject from the one that,
overwhelmingly, most Americans care about – the economy. Every week
there is a new issue his campaign seizes on, preferring to talk about
something, anything other than jobs and 8.3 per cent unemployment.While
Obama is still drawing sizable crowds, they are nothing like the size
of those who flocked to see him in 2008. In Las Vegas, Obama held a
rally in a high school before more than 2,000 people but there was space
for plenty more.On the
outskirts of Manchester, New Hampshire on Monday morning, Mitt Romney
and Paul Ryan attracted more than 3,000 people who patiently queued in
lines across a field to be searched by the Secret Service.

More...

Crowd size is not everything –
as Obama himself could attest after losing in the 2008 New Hampshire
primary to Hillary Clinton even though he had attracted unprecedented
numbers to his events, eclipsing the former First Lady by two or three
to one.But the difference
between the numbers Obama is attracting now compared to four years ago
should be a cause of deep concern to his campaign. More
significantly, the mood of the crowds is different. There is a
sullenness, even resentment, that was not present in 2008. Ask an Obama
supporter about their man and as often as not you will get a few words
about him and then a demeaning attack on Romney or Ryan.

Bright eyes: Then-senator Obama is pictured speaking during a town hall meeting in San Antonio, Texas in March of 2008

Popularity: The president's likability surged during his speech at the Victory Column in Berlin in 2008

They are taking their cue from
the candidate himself. Obama used not to mention Romney by name. In Las
Vegas, he did so nine times. And
while he was careful to call him ‘Governor Romney’ and not stoop to the
kind of attacks he has left to his campaign and its allies (such as
accusing him of being a felon or linking him to the death of a woman
from cancer), the contempt he has for his opponent was almost visceral.

Significantly, the mood of the
crowds is different. There is a sullenness, even resentment, that was
not present in 2008. Ask an Obama supporter about their man and as often
as not you will get a few words about him and then a demeaning attack
on Romney or Ryan.

The crowd sensed it. When Obama
mentioned ‘Republicans in Congress’, they began to boo loudly. Obama
attempted to quiet them: ‘No, no, no, no, no, don’t boo – vote,’ he
said. ‘That’s right. Vote.’But
the crowd had taken their cue from Obama – the booing reflected the
tone he had adopted. It was clever politics – whip up the crowd, then
make a high-minded appeal for civility while at the same time trying to
turn their anger into action.Obama
has taken on Ryan by name – presidential candidates, never mind
incumbent presidents, don’t normally stoop to mentioning the bottom half
of the opposing ticket.In 2008, the Obama campaign was full
of endless possibilities and expectations of a bright new horizon. This
time, it’s a joyless slog. And there’s something else: Obama now tends
to look emptily past rather than at his audiences. It’s as if the light
in his eyes has gone out.Obama
has seized on the bone-headed 'legitimate rape' remarks of Todd Akin, a
previously obscure figure running for the US Senate in Missouri, to try
to make them central to his campaign. At
a New York fundraiser on Wednesday, Obama joked about referred 'the
Senator of Missouri, Mr Akin' (he's a congressman) who 'sits on the
House Committee on Science and Technology but somehow missed science
class'.

The Obama campaign
appears intent on turning the Democratic convention into one long gloat
about Akin's comments in the hope of driving women voters away from
Romney. Obama advisers are even talking of Akin being "on the ticket"
with Romney and Ryan.In
Las Vegas, a campaign event and a stridently partisan one at that,
Obama’s lectern was decorated with the presidential seal. Back in 2010,
Obama’s then press secretary Robert Gibbs said that ‘at strictly
political events we would not use’ the seal, which is a symbol of the
office of the presidency not of a political candidate.Another
remarkable thing is that many of those at Obama’s events – like many
people across the country - are not listening to him. In Reno on Tuesday
evening, it was at times hard to follow what Obama was saying because
of the chatter.

Knowing smile: Then-presidential hopeful Obama attends a rally at the Community College of Beaver County in Pennsylvania in 2008

A number of those attending
seemed only to want to get a picture of themselves with Obama speaking
in the background. In 2008, audiences would be rapt, almost mesmerised,
when Obama spoke. At Romney and Ryan events there is near silence and
many an intent, furrowed brow as the case for change is made.In
Las Vegas, the crowd chanted ‘Yes We Can’ before Obama appeared but it
sounded like a dirge rather than the perky, upbeat chant of 2008. It was
so different that one local reporter even walked over to me to ask what
they were chanting.Behind
Obama was emblazoned the word ‘Forward’, a slogan once used by Josef
Stalin. But at the core of Obama’s case is the notion that President
George W. Bush’s policies are responsible for the mess America is in.
Listening to him at times it is as if the last four years never
happened.Obama’s campaign
schedule reveals a lot about how he seeks victory in November. Last
week, he spend three days in Iowa and held nine events. Iowa has six
electoral college votes of the 270 Obama needs to win.

Easy does it: President Obama gestures as he is
interrupted by a protester as he speaks at a campaign event at Canyon
Springs High School in Nevada earlier this week

50 shades of grey: The president shows signs of wear and hair with white and grey strands

On Saturday, Obama held two
events in New Hampshire, which has four Electoral College votes and on
Tuesday and Wednesday he was in Nevada, which has six. Obama, moreover,
won Nevada by more than 12 percentage points in 2008.What
does this tell is? That Obama is on the defensive and knows the only
way he can win re-election is by the narrowest of margins, by ‘slicing
and dicing’ – his own pejorative term – and eking out a 51 to 49 per
cent victory, crawling across the line to 270 electoral college votes.Perhaps
the most striking thing of all is Obama’s demeanour. He has visibly
greyed over the past four years but that happens to most world leaders.
What is more noteworthy is his lugubrious expression and the fact that
he grimaces much more often than he smiles

Monday, August 27, 2012

Another video of my recently restarted "Monday Music". What can I say...I like Music video's...I remember MTV when they actually played music video's. Mostly from the 2nd British invasion like flock of seagulls, Dexy's midnight runner, ABC, and many of what is called "New Wave".

Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Presidential race is boiling down to one dominant issue: which
party's policies will do more to help the financially stressed American
middle class. President Obama's campaign theme is that Mitt Romney and
the Republicans cater to the rich, while Mr. Obama cares about
struggling families.
He may care, but he sure hasn't done much for them. New income data
from the Census Bureau, tabulated by former Census income specialists at
the nonpartisan economic consulting firm Sentier Research, reveal that
the three-and-a-half years of the Obama Presidency have done enormous
harm to middle-class households.

In
January 2009, the month President Obama entered the Oval Office and
shortly before he signed his stimulus spending bill, median household
income was $54,983. By June 2012, it had tumbled to $50,964, adjusted
for inflation. (See the chart nearby.) That's $4,019 in lost real
income, a little less than a month's income every year.Unfair, you say, because Mr. Obama inherited a recession? Well, even
if you start the analysis when the recession ended in June 2009, the
numbers are dismal. Three years after the economy hit its trough, median
household income is down $2,544, or nearly 5%.

In January 2009, the month President Obama entered the Oval Office and
shortly before he signed his stimulus spending bill, median household
income was $54,983. By June 2012, it had tumbled to $50,964, adjusted
for inflation. (See the chart nearby.) That's $4,019 in lost real
income, a little less than a month's income every year.Add the authors: "The overall decline since June 2009 was larger than
the 2.6 percent decline that occurred" during the recession from
December 2007 to June 2009. For household income, in other words, the
Obama recovery has been worse than the Bush recession.
It's true that the Bush years overall were also not great for
household incomes. According to Sentier's analysis, real median
household income is down about 8% from $55,470 in 2000 before the
dot-com bubble burst. Some of this decline is due to the continuation of
a trend of smaller family size, lower fertility rates and more
Americans living alone. But some was also due to the subpar economic
growth across the 2000s.
That slow growth trend has become worse since the latest recession,
and this is where Mr. Obama is implicated. The President portrays the
financial decline of American families on his watch as part of a
decades-long trend. He's wrong. Real income for middle-income households
rose by roughly 30% from 1983 to 2005, according to the Congressional
Budget Office. The political left likes to blame the ebbing of union
power. But nongovernment unionization fell dramatically in the 1980s and
'90s, and incomes rose.
So what does explain falling real incomes? Slow growth, yes, but
another culprit has been rising prices—especially for food, gasoline,
medical procedures and college tuition—that have eroded worker
purchasing power. The Federal Reserve claims this is no problem because
"core inflation" has been relatively contained. But core inflation
excludes food and energy prices, which are two of the biggest components
of consumer budgets.

The big pay freeze is also the bitter
fruit of public schools that have failed to teach the basic skills and
knowledge needed to succeed in a competitive global economy. Rising
health-care costs have also forced employers to take money that used to
go into higher wages to pay higher premiums.
A key driver of higher wages in the 1980s and 1990s was a surge of
capital investment in computers, plant and equipment, which made
Americans workers more productive. When Mr. Obama pledges to raise taxes
on investment income (capital gains, dividends and small-business
profits), he is making it costlier to innovate and modernize. That plays
out over time into slower gains in productivity and wages.
Consider the toll from America's corporate tax rate, which is the
highest in the industrial world. A 2011 study by economists at the
American Enterprise Institute found that because of the capital flight
from the U.S. as a result of this high rate, "every additional dollar of
tax revenue [from the corporate tax] leads to a $4 decrease in
aggregate real wages." American workers would be the biggest
beneficiaries of tax reform.
The new income data reveal other eye-opening trends. The group that
has suffered the most during the Obama Presidency has been black
Americans, whose real incomes have fallen by more than 11%.
Mr. Obama also likes to say that government workers like teachers are
hurting and the private economy is doing "just fine." But the data
indicate that over the past three years households with government
workers saw their incomes decline less than households with private
workers. The public-private pay gap is now wider than ever ($77,998
government versus $63,800).
Every age group has seen a decline in income—except the elderly.
Those between the ages of 65 and 75 saw an average 6.5% gain in income,
though most are not working and collect Medicare and Social Security.
The last time incomes fell this fast was during the late 1970s under
Jimmy Carter, and it's no coincidence that economic policies then and
now are so similar. If Mr. Obama succeeds in convincing voters that he
really is the tribune of the middle class, it will be the political
conjurer's trick of the century.

More and more people are realizing that cap and trade is just a scheme for the government to find another income stream. This cap and trade nonsense only seems to afflict the western based societies. the other areas of the globe like China and India basically tell the global warming dingbats to piss off. I gues the enviro-wacko's like the rule of law that is prevelant here and it protects them, and not the rule of man that is
used elswhere that would make them disappear into a prison or "vanish" like other people that criticize the powers that be.

EU Emissions Trading System Under Attack From Australian Lawmakers

The EU emissions trading system (ETS) is facing a fresh challenge, this time from Australia­—an unexpected move by a country that also considers cap-and-trade systems a viable option to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.
Australia was not involved in a meeting last year in Delhi and this year in Moscow that resulted in declarations of opposition to the ETS, but was one of 17 countries that met earlier this month in Washington to discuss ETS. Unlike the Delhi and Moscow meetings, the Washington meeting was convened to find a consensus approach to ETS rather than merely a statement of opposition.
But this weekend Australia’s House of Representatives passed a non-binding resolution calling on the Australian government to use all legal and diplomatic means to stop the application of ETS to international airlines. The resolution has the backing of both the conservative National Party of Australia and the ruling Labor Party.
The resolution, which has yet to be considered up by the upper house of the legislature, argues that either the International Air Transport Association or the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) should broker any international deal on aviation’s role in climate change, says Bill Hemmings, program manager for aviation and shipping at the Brussels-based Transport & Environment advocacy group.
The opposition to Europe’s ETS comes as Australia considers its own legislation to establish a country-wide cap-and-trade system, a measure which has broad support, says Hemmings. Before the EU’s ETS applied to aviation, EU officials pointed to Australia’s plans for a cap-and-trade system as a possible equivalent measure that might be exempted from the ETS.
Countries or regions can apply to be exempted from the EU’s ETS if they have equivalent emissions-reduction measures in place.
Similar to legislation pending in the U.S. Senate, the resolution passed by Australia’s lower house objects to the EU charging for emissions for the entire length of a flight. This measure, and the participation in the Washington meetings, suggest that Australia’s stance is converging with that of the U.S. on climate change and aviation, environmental groups say.
This has been a disappointment to the environmental community. “Australia has been a constructive voice in ICAO,” says Pamela Campos, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund. “We sincerely hope Australia will continue to be active as all eyes turn toward ICAO.”
ICAO has said it could have a proposal for market-based emissions-mitigation measures by the end of the year.

Five Ways Obama Is Hurting the Middle Class

BY: Bill McMorrisAugust 22, 2012 5:00 am
Vice
President Joe Biden claims that the middle class is mounting a
comeback—and will continue to do so unless the GOP bumps Democrats from
office.
“Folks, the middle class is coming back,” he told a crowd of supporters in Minnesota. “They have been ravaged, but they’re starting to come back.”
President Obama attempted to paint a similarly rosy picture in June
after disappointing jobs reports showed unemployment ticking up.
“The private sector is doing fine,” he said.
Unemployment has risen from 8.1 percent at the time of Obama’s
statement to 8.3 percent when Biden spoke. The Republican National
Committee (RNC) has jumped on the statement and pointed to four
additional signs that the middle class is far from a comeback during the
Obama recovery.

2. Decreased savings

Bank of America / Wikimedia Commons

Americans are struggling to manage their day-to-day expenses, leading
many to abandon the savings that have been an entryway to the middle
class. Nearly 1 in 4 Americans have reported no savings, a five percent jump since Obama took office.

3. Record-high Handouts

AP Images

Nearly half of all Americans—49.1 percent—received
some form of government assistance in 2011, including unemployment,
Medicaid, and welfare. Food stamp recipients jumped 45 percent over the
past three years. Means-tested government transfer payments can act as
marginal tax increase, studiesshow.

4. Wealth Has Vanished

AP Images

Median income has plummeted since the start of the recession. Wages remain stagnant. The average household has lost $4,300 from its annual income since Obama took office. Average wealth fell 40 percent during the weakened recovery. Nearly one in three mortgages are now underwater.

5. Joblessness

AP Images

The root cause behind all of these issues is unemployment, which has
remained above 8 percent for the past 42 months, despite Obama’s
assurances. People are also staying unemployed for longer periods of
time: The average jobless person can expect a nearly 40-week wait in between jobs, double the 20-week rate when Obama took office.

I was cruising through my blogroll and visited The blog of Irish as I tend to do everyday since he has a lot of good stuff on it. I saw this video. I took the time to watch it and remember back in the 70's my Dad was stationed in Germany in the Frankfurt area and he had purchased for my brother and myself a bunch of LEGO stuff for it was very popular in Germany. When we came back to the states, the people here didn't know what those little plastic blocks were. My brother and I built many things with those blocks...from cities and towns where our toy soldiers would engage in urban warfare to airplanes and boats....that had guns on them of course. My brother and I were the terrors of our neighborhood as far as "kiddie" warfare went. We would engage in set place battles with other kids after the rules of engagements have been formalized with our toy tanks, toy airplanes and toy soldiers. We were undefeated:) That is what happens when we studies the rules of warfare and the tactics of Rommel and Patton and using historical precedents. We would crush the other kids battle plans. Nowadays that would have gotten us referred to some shrink or something. But this was the 70's and it was a different time.

I saw this video while surfing youtube. Besides finding old TV shows that I like plus the Saturday morning cartoons that I used to watch...with all the gratuitous violence a la The Roadrunner and Wile E.
Bill Whittle released another video and it is informative and humorous. Well worth the watch.

Repeal Obamacare' Billboard Vandalized

Vandals this past weekend extensively damaged a Sarasota County Republican Party billboard with the message “Repeal Obama.”
At about 8 a.m. Sunday, Sarasota GOP Chairman Joe Gruters said he
received an email notifying him about the damage to the sign at the U.S.
41 Bypass and Center Road.
Someone with a cutting instrument removed the word “Repeal,” the
GOP's website address and its financial disclosure statement but left
the word “Obama.”
...
“This wasn't kids,” Gruters said. “It wasn't an easy job.”

On Monday afternoon Gruters told Breitbart News:

It's extremely disappointing when you work hard as a group to build a
sign... we raised contributions... and to have it destroyed by vandals
is disappointing. This Chicago style politics coming to Florida is
disgusting. This is new to Sarasota. We've never had this type of
incident.
This job could not have been done by kids. You had to have a box
truck or a ladder. For them to have dissected the sign as they did, it
was pretty obvious it was a planned attack. It wasn't just a few minutes
work. It took them at least fifteen minutes to do it. The police said
they're actively engaged in the investigation. If they catch them,
they're going to be charged with felony mischief.
The good news is we've raised enough money to replace the billboard.

On Monday Breitbart News called Sarasota County Sheriff's Department
Public Information Officer Wendy Rose for an update on the investigation
into this act of vandalism but has not yet received a response.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The airplane is in Spokane, WA and is the oldest airworthy Boeing in the World.
After eight years of repair and rebuilding and 8,000 hours of toil the
Boeing 40C rolled out last winter as a finished airplane.

They had to wait a few weeks for the snow to melt to fly
this baby. They received their Standard Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA
and completed the engine pre-oil and fuel flow tests for the first of the taxi
tests. Facts for the Boeing
40 project: The airplane weighs 4,080 lbs empty and has a gross weight of
6,075 lbs.

It is 34 feet long and 13 feet tall with a wingspan of
over 44 feet. Wing loading is 10 lbs per sq ft and power loading is 10 lbs
per HP.

The wings have 33,000 individual parts in them. It
should cruise at 115 mph using 28 GPH and 32 GPH at 120 mph.

It carries 120 gallons of fuel in three tanks. Over
221 gallons of dope/reducer and 120 yards of 102 ceconite fabric; twelve gallons
of polyurethane paint for the sheet metal; and three-hundred-and-fifty 2"
brushes were used to apply six gallons of West Systems epoxy.
One-hundred-eighty-one rolls of paper towels were needed for
cleanup.There were a total of 62 volunteers who worked on the project to
some degree. Twenty-one of the volunteers did a significant amount of the work
and nine of the volunteers worked continuously during the eight-year project

I have thought about it more than once..I have severe doubts that Obungler will step down...I keep thinking that if he refuses to step down, the senate by law would impeach him and remove him from office. That being said...this is the same senate that refuses to fulfil its constitutional duty and pass a budget. I can't see the spineless pukes in the senate doing that. Also I believe that if Obama loses...he will invoke the race card and the cities will burn and riot as the urban class believe that their messiah Obama is being "hemmed in by da man" and explode in fury in support of "their own". The election this year will be very interesting.

Let's
go there: if Obama thinks he's losing, will he allow safe and fair
elections on November 6? And if he does lose, will he peacefully turn
over power to Mitt Romney on January 20, 2013? Or will he cling to
power "by any means necessary," as a highly placed insider alleges?Now,
I'm truly sorry to raise such disgusting, un-American, crazy-sounding
questions, but, alas, they're not crazy, and I've got a disquieting
amount of evidence. The Democrats have already accused Romney of
murdering a woman with cancer, financial felonies, and not filing taxes
for ten years -- the last charge delivered by Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid on the Senate floor, on the basis of absolutely no evidence
whatsoever.By Democrat standards, I've got enough proof to put away Obama, et al. for life without parole.Whatever
chicanery Obama and his investors may be contemplating, it will
probably unfold against some gargantuan crisis, manufactured or
otherwise. So cast your mind back to September 11, 2001, the day of the
New York mayoral primary. In
the chaos after the attacks, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was
term-limited from running, pleaded that his leadership was essential and
that he should be granted an extra three months in office
after his term ran out on January 1. Giuliani's unprecedented
power-grab was rightfully scorned by his eventual successor, Michael
Bloomberg. So what did Bloomberg do when he ran into term limits? He
deployed his multi-billion-dollar fortune to manipulate the law and buy himself a quasi-legal third term, claiming that only he had the expertise to handle the 2008 financial crisis.My
point? Politicians a great deal more conventional than Obama have
loathed giving up power, and they have used crises and unethical
machinations to try to keep it.Now, let's look at just some of the disturbing evidence that indicates that Obama and his investors are plotting something big:

Somehow I am not surprised....I could make the comment that they should have been honored to host the Chicago Messiah. It is like the DNC to stiff people....after all freeloading and mooching is what democrats are best at.

WESTPORT, Conn. (CBS Connecticut/AP) — Westport’s
first selectman says the town has been informed it will not be
reimbursed thousands of dollars for President Barack Obama’s visit for a
fundraiser earlier this month.
First Selectman Gordon Joseloff says the Democratic National
Committee notified the town it will not pay police and fire overtime
costs totaling $14,812.

The town asked the DNC and Obama for America to pay the overtime
costs incurred when the president arrived at Sherwood Island State Park
on Aug. 6 to attend a fundraiser in Stamford and a $35,800 per person
dinner at the Westport home of movie producer Harvey Weinstein.
The New Register reports that an executive of the Democratic National
Committee wrote that as a private organization it did not participate
in security, traffic control, fire or emergency planning. She referred
questions to the Secret Service.
“I didn’t expect that we would get repayment, but it was worthwhile to ask,” Joseloff told the Register.

Well, early one Saturday
morning we learned that Congressman Paul Ryan, Republican from Wisconsin , is to
be Mitt Romney's pick for the next Vice President of The United
States.

What are we to think of this selection? He's not a graduate of
Columbia University . He's not a graduate of Harvard. He wasn't selected as the
President of the Harvard Law Review. He didn't get a special free quota
scholarship ride to any prestigious university and, instead, had to work his way
through Miami University of Ohio...the man drove the Oscar Mayer Wiener Truck
one summer and waited tables another!

One morning when Paul Ryan was
sixteen years old he went in to wake his father and found him dead of a heart
attack. He didn't write two books about that experience. Instead, he assumed the
role of adult at an early age, never having the luxury to pursue youthful drug
use and the art of socialist revolution.

Instead, Paul Ryan and his
mother took his grandmother, suffering from Alzheimer's, into the household and
served as the primary care provider for his grandma. His grandma wasn't the Vice
President of the Bank of Hawaii so she could offer nothing in return, except the
element of "need".

Once Paul Ryan got his BA in Economics from Miami
University of Ohio he was hired as a staff economist in Wisconsin Senator
Kastin's office. The job must have not paid well because young Ryan moonlighted
as a waiter and fitness trainer. No one offered him a "token honor" position at
the University of Chicago and a $200,000 dollar a year salary.

When a
still young Paul Ryan returned to Wisconsin to run for Congress, he didn't
demonize his opponent and dig up dirt to shovel against him. He waited until the
standing Congressman vacated the office before seeking the office. In Janesville
, Wisconsin they don't have a big political machine to promote you, to
criminalize your opponent; instead Paul Ryan had to go door to door and sit at
kitchen tables and listen to his future constituents.

After getting
elected to Congress, Paul Ryan didn't triumphantly march into Washington , buy
himself a Georgetown townhouse and proceed over to K Street to rub elbows with
lobbyists. He bunked in his Congressional office and used the house gym for
showers and a fresh change of clothes.

Paul Ryan then married and took
his bride back to Janesville . He lives on the same street he lived on as a kid
and shares the neighborhood with eight other members of the Ryan clan. He hunts
with the local Janesville hunt club and attends PTA meetings and other civic
functions.

For those who can't make those public functions, Paul Ryan
bought an old bread truck, converted it into a "mobile constituent office" and
drives around to meet with those who need his help and attention.

No, I
don't know if we can vote for a guy like this. He doesn't have a regal pedigree;
he's Irish! No one awarded him a Nobel Peace Prize two months after getting
elected. No one threw flowers or got "chills down their leg" as he took his seat
in Congress.

What is most despicable about Paul Ryan is that he has had
the nerve to write the House Budget for three years in a row. He is brazen and
heartless in advocating in that budget for a $5 trillion dollar reduction in
federal spending over the next ten years! The House passed his budget three
years in a row and three years in a row the Democratically controlled Senate has
let it die in the upper house, without ever proposing a budget of their own.
What is wrong with this guy? If Congress were to cut $5 trillion dollars from
the budget where would the President get the money to give $500 million dollars
to a bankrupt Solyndra? Or $200 million dollars for bankrupt Energy 1? Or $11
billion dollars to illegal aliens filing INIT, non-resident tax returns to claim
$11 billion big ones in child tax credits, even for their children living in
Mexico ?

I don't know. Paul Ryan seems heartless to me. He keeps wanting
to cut government waste, he keeps wanting to put a halt to those big GSA
conventions in Vegas and, worse, he keeps trying to make people look at that
$16.7 trillion dollar deficit! The guy's no fun at all!

Who wants a
numbers cruncher? Who wants someone spoiling the party by showing folks the
bill? Nothing will spoil a party quicker than sending the host the bill before
the party's over.

Friday, August 17, 2012

We saw the Constitution last year in Boston and took a tour of her, her mast were off during that time as they were being overhauled. This is my son visiting the Oldest commissioned warship in the world. I loved visiting Boston, "B" town was my favorite while I was stationed at Fort Devens in MASS for 9 long months during A.I.T. I hated Massachusetts because of the way I was treated, but I loved Boston going where all the historical figures had walked was thrilling. Seeing Boston Commons, Fanual Hall, Quincy Marketplace and of course "Cheers"

Navy's oldest commissioned warship to sail again

Associated
Press/Charles Krupa, File - FILE - In this July 21, 1997 file photo,
the Blue Angels fly in formation over the USS Constitution as she free
sails off the coast of Marblehead, Mass., in celebration …more

BOSTON (AP) — The U.S. Navy's
oldest commissioned warship will sail under its own power for just the
second time in more than a century to commemorate the battle that won it
the nickname "Old Ironsides."

The USS Constitution,
which was first launched in 1797, will be tugged from its berth in
Boston Harbor on Sunday to the main deepwater pathway into the harbor.
It will then set out to open seas for a 10-minute cruise.

The
short trip marks the day two centuries ago when the Constitution bested
the British frigate HMS Guerriere in a fierce battle during the War of
1812. It follows a three-year restoration project and is the first time
the Constitution has been to sea on its own since its 200th birthday in
1997.

Before that, it hadn't sailed under its own power since 1881. The Constitution is periodically tugged into the harbor for historical display.

Chief Petty Officer Frank Neely, a Constitution spokesman and crew member, said the crew wants to honor and preserve the Constitution with Sunday's sail.

"This ship is a national icon to us. ... She's very special to us. We think she's very special to the United States," he said.

The
Constitution was under the command of Capt. Issac Hull when it engaged
the Guerriere off Nova Scotia on Aug. 19, 1812. The young war was not
going well for America, which had surrendered Detroit to the British
with basically no resistance a week earlier.

But
the Guerriere proved no match for the Constitution, which was heavier
and longer. The vessels blasted away at each other at close range, even
colliding at one point, during the 35-minute battle. The Constitution's
24-pound cannonballs felled the Guerriere's mast, while the British
vessels' 18-pound cannonballs had trouble penetrating the Constitution's
two-foot thick live oak hull, said Matthew Brenckle, a historian at the
USS Constitution Museum.

Brenckle
said a sailor's memoirs recorded how one cannonball seemed to slightly
penetrate the ship, before dropping into the sea. The sailor then called
out the quote that would give the Constitution its nickname, "Huzzah,
her sides are made of iron! See where the shot fell out!"

It
wasn't the first naval win in what would be a divisive, expensive war,
but it set off celebrations around the country, Brenckle said.

"Strategically,
it really did nothing to change the course of the war," he said. "But
the morale boost that that provided for the American cause, I think was
quite important."

During
Sunday's sail, the Constitution's crew of about 65, accompanied by 150
sailors selected to be part of event, will unfurl four of its 36 sails,
Neely said. The tugs will stand by as a precaution when the Constitution
sails on its own. And the trip can't happen unless the weather
conditions are right.

The ship
won't move in winds less than five mph and anything over about 15 mph
would put too much stress on the vessel, Neely said. But the forecast
looks favorable.

The lengthy
work in preparation for Sunday's sail was largely on the Constitution's
aesthetics, though the masts were restored, Neely said. The crew also
underwent extensive training on how to handle a vessel that's unlike any
other in the U.S. Navy.

"A
lot of hours of work went into this one day right here," Neely said. "I
wouldn't be surprised if I broke a couple of tears after this."